Verb Patterns: Stop Doing vs Stop to Do (And Start to Do vs Start Doing)

Hello, this is Jack from tofluency.com bringing you an English lesson that's going to have

a look at verb patterns and, more specifically, the difference between: stop doing and stop

to do.

And I used the first one, stop doing, in one of my recent videos, so, what I'm going to

do in this lesson is show you the video; the example. Give an explanation about this and

then we'll look at some more examples and something else as well.

So, let's have a look at the video first...

“However, after a few weeks or a few months, the majority of learners start to lose that

initial energy and motivation. And in many cases, they stop learning English for a period

of time.”

In the video, I said, “However, after a few weeks or a few months, the majority of

learners start to lose that initial energy and motivation. And in many cases, they stop

learning English for a period of time.”

So, we have this: stop learning English; that's what we're going to focus on. To stop doing

something means to quit or finish doing something. We'll see some more examples later. But you

can see here; I can say, and in many cases, they quit learning English, okay, so it's

basically saying that they stop learning; that they quit learning English for a period

of time.

Stop to do something is different 'cause this means to take a break or to finish something

to then do something else. Now, this is a little bit confusing but some examples are

really going to help you.

My dad stopped smoking a few years ago. Okay, so this means he quit smoking a few years

ago, and I also made another video where I talked about how you can say: my dad gave

up smoking a few years ago. So, feel free to check that video out.

Now, look at the difference: my friend stopped to answer his phone. So, I can say my friend

stopped driving his car to answer his phone, but if the context is obvious; if we're already

talking about driving a car, then there's no need to add that. So the context is important

here. But you can see this difference. My friend stopped to answer his phone. So, he

stopped the car, pulled over, and then answered his phone.

We stopped having lunch when they arrived. So, in this example, we stopped eating; we

quit eating our lunch when someone arrived. So, we were eating, someone arrived, then

we stopped eating.

We stopped to have lunch at the service station. So again, the context is important here, and

the overall context is that we're driving; we're on a road trip. But we stopped driving

to have lunch at the service station. So we stopped one activity and did another one.

Now, I want to just go over the example I gave in the video because there is something

really interesting here. And I said, “However, after a few weeks or a few months, the majority

of learners start to lose that initial energy and motivation.”

So, we can see here I use start to lose. I could also say the majority of English

learners, or the majority of learners, start losing that initial energy and motivation.

Because, with the verb start, both the infinitive and gerund are fine. They both mean the same

thing.

It's a little bit confusing but, hopefully, this has cleared things up for you.

Now, my question for you in this video is this: Do people stop to answer their phone

when driving where you live? Do people stop to answer their phone when driving where you

live?

So, leave your answers below this video. Thanks for watching, and see you next time!